The End of Rule By Intimidation

Today's news on so many fronts reveals a signature moment. Not only has the chief of staff to the Vice President of the United States been convicted, but a similarly explosive story is playing out in the Senate Judiciary Committee. Justice is reasserting itself on many fronts today, and the moral of the story is that you cannot rule by intimidation, fear and bullying without it eventually catching up to you.

Scooter Libby lied to the FBI and a federal grand jury because he believed he could get away with it. He was doing so at a time where the Bush Administration felt they controlled all the levers of government and could do their business with total impunity. Since they have a sincere belief that people only listen when threatened (just look at their foreign policy), their favored method of action was intimidation.

It was intimidation that was at the heart of revealing Valerie Plame's covert status. They were backing the media off of the truthfulness of Joe Wilson's story. They were backing other CIA agents or whistleblowers off any desgins they might have on coming forward, showing by inference that their lives would be ruined if they made such a decision. The brazen nature of this initimidation necessitated a coverup that led to the verdict you saw today.

And in the Senate Judiciary Committee this morning, the Bush Administration was revealed to have learned ABSOLUTELY NOTHING from that exercise. You need to read this email to get a full understanding of it. Essentially, the deputy Attorney General, Paul McNulty, threatened former US Attorney Bud Cummins with blackmail if he continued to criticize the Administration's efforts to purge him and his colleagues. That the Justice Department would threaten to put out damaging information about US Attorneys if they continued to speak out fits into this exact same pattern as outing Valerie Plame to get back at her husband. They've learned nothing from Scooter Libby, and they continue to operate in the same fashion. Attorney General Gonzales would only say that he could have rolled out the firings more smoothly. The only regret is that THEY HAVEN'T GOTTEN AWAY WITH IT.

In addition, yet another US Attorney has alleged that he received a phone call pressuring him to investigate a case that would benefit Republicans and damage Democrats. This time it was the chief of staff to Doc Hastings (R-WA), the former head of the HOUSE ETHICS COMMITTEE, calling US Attorney John McKay to look into allegations of voter fraud in the 2004 Washington gubernatorial race. There's video of the McKay allegation here.

March 6 is an important day in the history of this Administration. You cannot continue to run the US Government like the mob and not expect any consequences. The walls are starting to crumble and the highest reaches of the executive branch - the Vice President, the Attorney General, the President himself - are no longer protected. This is the day that truth started to win out, and the day that begins a long march toward restoring what's left of this democracy and taking the country back from the thugs that have criminally ruled it for the past six years.

UPDATE: Kevin Drum:

It's remarkable. The Bushies quietly got a shiny new Patriot Act power to fire and replace U.S. Attorneys without Senate approval, so they went ahead and used it. Then they got called on it. So how did they react?

Well, they could have just said it was for policy reasons: they wanted people who were on board with administration policies a little more heartily, and these folks didn't make the grade. So we replaced them.

What would have happened then? A little bit of grumbling, probably. Some complaints that Bush was politicizing the office, perhaps, but since the offices are political appointments in the first place that wouldn't have gone very far. And the fired official themselves, who are all Republican loyalists in the first place, would have packed their bags and gotten other jobs. They know how politics works.

But no. This administration is so dedicated to spin and deceit that they just couldn't leave it alone. They figured maybe they could avoid any criticism by claiming the firings were for performance-related reasons. That should shut everyone up! But of course it did just the opposite. The fired attorneys, who were originally willing to suck it up and accept their political fate, were unhappy over being called incompetent. Who wouldn't be? And so the whole thing unraveled. Now it's a case of U.S. Attorneys being fired because they were too zealous about prosecuting Republican corruption, and the Department of Justice is reduced to feebly arguing that it's just a coincidence that so many of the Pearl Harbor Eight were investigating corruption cases.

It's not enough that they use little tricks to aggrandize their power. They have to insult those who they kick out the door, and threaten their careers. That's why it's backfiring.